


lost and found

by metrosun (Afueras)



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, not much else, winter feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 09:25:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13073946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afueras/pseuds/metrosun
Summary: Night seems to fall early in Ikebukuro lately, and the streets away from the city center seem emptier from the chill of the late autumn wind.  Shizuo stands on a deserted corner and rolls an unlit cigarette thoughtfully between his fingers.  It isn’t unusual for him to go a few weeks - sometimes months - without seeing his nemesis, but with Izaya’s line of work, that only seems natural.  The flea always appears again.





	lost and found

Night seems to fall early in Ikebukuro lately, and the streets away from the city center seem emptier from the chill of the early autumn wind. Shizuo stands on a deserted corner and rolls an unlit cigarette thoughtfully between his fingers.

 _It’ll rain soon_ , he thinks vaguely.

Against his will his thoughts turn to Izaya. It isn’t unusual for him to go a few weeks - sometimes months - without seeing his nemesis, but with Izaya’s line of work, that only seems natural. The flea always appears again.

It’s Izaya’s sisters that have Shizuo’s gut twisting ominously. He had seen the two earlier on his way home from work, huddled on a bench and having some kind of furious discussion. He almost veered toward them out of some indescribable protective instinct, but turned away when they noticed him with venom in Mairu’s gaze and something beyond the usual emptiness in Kururi’s. Shizuo headed home then, trying to put it out of his mind, but was pulled off course and into a bar by the promise of liquor and forgetting.

The forgetting part never quite came.

Several hours later, Shizuo stands at the corner of an empty street and procrastinates lighting his last cigarette. His head is fuzzy from drink and unwarranted anxiety. He has been melancholy lately, and knows that he’s shown it. Tom suggested he take a few days off. He isn’t honestly sure whether he has been too rough with clients lately, or not violent enough. Usually the lack of Izaya’s presence is simultaneously soothing and frustrating: he normally uses the info broker to blow off steam, but without him, the fires in Shizuo’s stomach burn low and quiet, and everything seems more at ease.

Shizuo’s gaze fixes emptily on a vending machine, passively debating throwing it anyway, just to see if letting out his rage is somehow satisfying even without any provocation. He can’t quite bring himself to do it, though.

A shuffling noise from an alley a few feet over catches his ear, and he feels a stirring of anger wind its way up his throat, almost tight enough to choke. He waits.

A long moment passes, and Shizuo’s muscles grow more and more tense. His breathing deepens, seeking for a familiar smell, almost hoping for the impending fight. He won’t seek it out, he tells himself. It will come to him, as always. Any moment now a grinning face will appear around the worn brick corner, daring him to give chase. Aching muscles clench down, ready to charge through the streets, throat tight and ready to scream the fleabag’s name and wake up the neighborhood with his hate. It’s about time.

But nothing happens. A wary tomcat scrambles out of the alley, hissing slightly at Shizuo before disappearing into the darkness beyond the streetlights. A glance down the alley reveals it to be empty. Shizuo growls, an almost painful sound, and goes home to toss and turn in restless dreams.

 

 

Shizuo doesn’t take the week off. He confronts Tom about the reasoning for the suggestion, and Tom says he seems tired. The ex-bartender scoffs at that, and Tom laughs it off. The two go back to work.

  
Empty days pass in a repetitive stupor. The weather has been bad, constant rain and ice and tearing wind, and Shizuo spends most of his free time in bars. The liquor is unsatisfying and he doesn’t want company, but he doesn’t want to be at home either. He declines Tom’s offers to go out and goes only to dives frequented by no one he knows. Sweet cocktails are slowly replaced by hard liquor, and a stumble home is followed by a handful of painkillers and a dreamless sleep.

  
Seasonal depression, he thinks once, hearing it in Shinra’s chirpy tone, and almost laughs.

  
After a week or two, the rain stops entirely and the emptiness eases with it. The days are cold and bright now. Shizuo’s job has been mind-numbingly dead. There isn’t much to be done, and Tom sends him home early almost every day. The two of them go to Russia Sushi, or a bar, and chat almost as though things were entirely normal, though even Simon seems a bit subdued lately, and sits inside with them while they eat.

  
“Why you look so down, Shizuo?” he asks once. “Is beautiful day.”

  
“I’m not down.”

  
Simon chuckles at that, and heads back outside to yell in the direction of potential customers.

  
The next morning, as Shizuo makes the usual rounds with Tom, something changes. It’s only for a flicker of a second, in a run-down studio flat on the outskirts of the city, but he sees a glimpse of two dark heads out the window, bent over a board game spread out on the dirty ground. A weird flash of heat hits him, and an image of two Orihara girls on a bench. He wonders vaguely if they know the rules to their sick brother’s game of chess, and is too lost in that fleeting thought to hear Tom’s raised voice, or to see it coming when a table crashes down on his head.

 

 

 

Shizuo wakes up in an empty white room he knows belongs to Shinra. A wave of regret hits him like a truck. Tom must be fine, or he wouldn’t be here - but for all he knows, Tom could be here too, having called for help first.

  
That thought spurs him out of bed despite any headache and lethargy. It was a hard hit at a good angle, and he holds a grudging respect for the man who landed it. Not many land blows on Shizuo Heiwajima, and even fewer cause damage and/or get away with it.

  
Voices draw him into the living room. Tom sits peacefully on the couch with a mug of tea, talking to Celty. Shinra’s voice is audible in his makeshift exam room down the hall, along with female voices that sound vaguely familiar, but Shizuo doesn’t dwell on it. Tom waves at him, and his heart clenches.

  
“I’m sorry.”

  
“No worries,” Tom answers smoothly. “Guy was high as a kite. Dislocated his shoulder throwing the table and was crying like a baby when the cops arrived.”

  
“Cops?” Shizuo mutters, tone wary.

  
“Called Celty first, she brought you back here.”

  
“Shouldn’t have needed it.”

  
Tom laughs at that. “You’re not immortal, Shizuo. No one is.”

  
The debt collector stretches, places his empty mug on a table, and smiles at Celty before turning back to Shizuo. “I’m going to be headed home. You want a ride?”

  
“No, thanks,” he says gruffly. “And sorry.”

  
Tom just smiles again and leaves with a wave. Shizuo’s guilt threatens to drown him. Celty pats the seat next to her until he takes it, and the two sit in silence waiting for Shinra to emerge. He knows he could talk to her, but currently doesn’t feel like talking ever again.

  
Shinra’s voice grows louder as the door opens, giving instructions for the care of what sounds like a broken leg, until another voice butts in.

  
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” it says. Shizuo’s head swivels, making eye contact with Mairu Orihara, who has emerged on one crutch and with the support of her sister. She hasn’t noticed him yet, still engaged in talking to Shinra, but Kururi has. Her eyes slide right off and to the floor.

  
“I’m not an idiot, Shinra, and I’m not twelve anymore--” Mairu cuts off like she’s been shot, and Shizuo knows she’s seen him. He watches as her eyes narrow, but she says nothing, merely snatching the other crutch from Shinra’s hand and maneuvering skillfully toward the door.

  
“Hold up,” Shinra yelps, “I have to get your prescription. Your brother doesn’t pay me for nothing, you know. He’d kill me if I let you leave here without it.” The doctor continues rambling, mostly to himself, as he heads off into another room, not noticing the stillness the mention of Izaya has evoked.

  
Shizuo bites his tongue to keep from speaking. For the first time in his life, he has words he wants to say and questions to ask, but he mentally clubs himself in the brain and says nothing. It shocks him, though, and probably everyone else, when Kururi does not.

  
“Shizuo-san?” she says, eyes slightly narrowed and fixed on a point just beyond his head. He just stares. “What have you done with Iza-nii?”

  
Everyone stares then, including Shinra who has reentered with a handful of papers and a pill bottle.

  
“What?” Shizuo splutters, but she doesn’t speak again, eyes locking vacantly on her sister’s leg. Uncharacteristically, Mairu doesn’t fill in the gap. She silently takes the items from Shinra and the two hobble out of the apartment in complete silence.

  
When Shizuo can tear his gaze from the closed door, his two friends are gaping at him blankly, both perfectly still. He holds his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know what she means. Swear to god.”

  
Shinra chuckles to himself and heads back to the kitchen, and Celty shrugs at Shizuo. The two sit side-by-side in silence for a while, Celty staring at her PDA and Shizuo simply thinking, feeling tendrils of anxiety creeping up his spine. A growl dies before it reaches his throat. Just like the flea, he thinks firmly. Up to something again.  
He then makes an executive decision not to think any more about it, and so he does not.

 

 

 

 

He still feels about it, though. He isn’t sure what the feeling is, but he knows it isn’t a good one. Izaya disappearing and scheming, even with his sisters seemingly out of the loop, is very much not something new. This feels different, though. Maybe he’s just going soft in the flea’s extended absence, or maybe it’s what Kasuke said to him on the phone the other week getting to him in unexpected ways (“I’m proud of you, Shizuo.”). Maybe it’s just a bad feeling. He wants to go with that one.

  
Three weeks into October and still nothing regarding the flea has reached his ears. He hasn’t seen the Orihara twins again since that day at Shinra’s, though he did find out how Mairu broke her leg. Apparently her temper was quicker than ever these days, and she didn’t take kindly to any insinuations about her family or home life, particularly regarding her sick and twisted brother.

  
He almost missed the two clinging to him when he passed them in the streets, fielding their endless chatter about Kasuka with vague non-answers that only served to fuel their indignant garble. Mairu’s, anyway. He can’t remember hearing Kururi speak a full sentence before. Not to him, anyway. That was reserved for her twin. And maybe her brother, which is a strange thought. Shizuo had tried not to think of the twins as related to the flea, in order to tolerate them. They were becoming hard to separate in his mind, now.

  
Another long routine week passed, and Shizuo made up his mind. Bypassing his previous decision not to think about the issue at hand, he settled on a course of action. Asking Shinra.

  
“Izaya?” Shinra said through a mouthful of the Russia Sushi that Shizuo had brought, “What makes you ask about him? Not looking for trouble, are you?” His voice was the usual chirp, but Shizuo had known the doctor for long enough not to be fooled.

  
“What are you hiding?” he growled. “Where is he?”

  
Shinra shrugged, swallowed his food and became busy with his chopsticks. “Who knows. Off the radar, doing whatever he does. Heard he was in Russia, maybe.”

  
In the corner of his eye, Shizuo can see Celty go still, puffs of smoke spilling from under her helmet, almost questioning. The ex-bartender narrows his eyes, but his old friend pretends not to see and carries on eating. Awkward silence stretches into minutes, before a pounding on the door makes them all jump.

  
“‘Scuse me!” Shinra says brightly, trotting off to answer it. A muffled conversation follows, and Shinra retreats to his makeshift exam room with two figures. Shizuo recognizes one of them as Awakusu and stifles a grumble of discontent. Instead, he turns to Celty.

  
“Do you know anything about what he’s hiding?”

  
The Dullahan gives an unhappy shrug, but doesn’t answer. Shinra doesn’t come out for another hour, and by then, Shizuo is long gone.

 

 

 

“Oi! Flea! I know you’re in there!” It’s surprising Izaya’s door hasn’t caved in yet. He must have had it reinforced, Shizuo thinks. The unpleasant churning in his stomach hasn’t subsided, only having gotten worse after the unhelpful dinner with his friends, so he has decided to resolve this once and for all in the best way he knows: by force.

  
“Come out, come out, I-za-yaaa,” he calls, but he can hear the weariness in his own voice. No one is home, or the flea would’ve already appeared. Shizuo isn’t sure which window belongs to Izaya when looking from the ground, but most are dark. It’s three weeks to Christmas, and snowy days have begun in earnest, alongside long cold nights. Izaya’s neighbors must all be deaf, or have tuned out the monster long ago when he first started his occasional treks to Shinjuku. Knowing Izaya, they are probably paid well to be blind and deaf in regards to any activity from one particular apartment. Maybe the flea owns the entire damn building, for all he knows.

  
Heaving a sigh, Shizuo turns away and faces the dark street. Snowflakes filter down through the streetlights like the hazy moments at the beginning or end of a dream. He feels that way: half-waking, half-sleeping. There is little work to be done with Tom at this time of year. Kasuka is filming abroad, and Shinra and Celty both seem to be avoiding him. Even Kadota and his crew aren’t out much in this weather. Which leaves Shizuo, and the very conspicuous absence of Izaya Orihara.

 

 

 

 

Out of all the things that could’ve surprised him most, Shizuo Heiwajima would not even have put the event of December 17 on the list. He simply wouldn’t have thought of it, because it didn’t previously lie within the realm of possibility. It still didn’t, he was sure. He was definitely hallucinating from boredom and careless insomnia. But here it was, as he saw it: Izaya Orihara in the flesh, directly on his doorstep.

  
“Hello.”

  
“Flea,” he says, too startled to say or do anything else. He rubs his eyes, and the image stays there. A slightly impatient but seemingly mellow Izaya, covered in snow and leaning casually on the railing to the steps. His fur-trimmed jacket is pulled shut around his frame, and one eye watches Shizuo lazily from the recesses of the hood.

  
“So, can I come in?”

  
Dumbly, Shizuo steps away from the door, dimly aware that he may be allowing the occurance of his own murder. Flashes of Izaya’s sisters pop into his head, and he shakes the visions away, focusing on his unexpected guest, who has passed him in the darkened entranceway without Shizuo even noticing and is sitting on his worn sofa when the ex-bartender turns around.

  
“So you aren’t dead,” he manages, trying to salvage his brain from the scrambled mess it seems to have become.

  
“No,” Izaya answers agreeably. He doesn’t volunteer anything else, and Shizuo sits down across from him. “I heard you’ve been looking for me,” the info-broker finally says, with a sort of calm that normally would have infuriated Shizuo, who currently iis too tired and short-circuited to think properly, and so ignores it.

  
“You could say that.” A pause. “Your sisters…”

  
“What about them?”

  
“Do they know you’re here?”

  
“In your apartment?” Izaya questions, but Shizuo can’t make out whether or not he is joking. The flea still has his hood up, even in the indoor heating.

  
“In… anywhere. Shinra… said you were in Russia, maybe.”

  
Izaya sighs, and looks at his fingernails for a moment before replying. “I was in Canada,” he says, “but close enough.”

  
“Why Canada?”

  
The informant looks up at him, but Shizuo can still only see that one red eye, calculating. Not in a malicious way. More thoughtful, almost human. But he still doesn’t answer the question.

  
“Why were you looking for me?”

  
“To kill you.” The response is immediate and automatic, but there is no heat behind it. Izaya still smiles.

  
“Willing to take a rain check?”

  
“To when?”

  
“Preferably never. I came to speak to you about a truce.”

  
Shizuo is the one to laugh then. He laughs until his eyes stream with stinging tears and his knee almost aches from the strong fist pounding against it. He laughs until a headache starts to build, but Izaya waits patiently.

  
“Why, fleabag?” he asks, the intended growl giving way to sheer incredulity. He feels snapped back to reality now, ready to keep himself from being on the receiving end of yet another trick or bad joke.

  
In response, Izaya gives him a long, measured look. “Is that a no?”

  
Shizuo just shakes his head. “Just answer me. Normally talking is the only thing you’re good at. Why stop now?”

  
“Nothing to say, except that I want a truce.”

  
“And why should I care what you want?”

  
“My conditions benefit you.”

  
“What, staying out of Ikebukuro?”

  
“Yes, isn’t that what you want?” Izaya says, sounding genuinely curious. “Because I have been, and you don’t seem pleased,” he adds after a moment, sounding almost like his usual self except lacking in the undercurrent of snide cruelty.

  
“I want answers, right now.”

  
“So do I.”

  
“No, you want me not to kill you. And I haven’t, even though you’re sitting on my couch and fouling up the clean air with your stench. So talk.”

  
Izaya seems to deliberate this, then slowly removes his hood. He is looking down, his bangs in his eyes, hair longer than Shizuo remembers - though he couldn’t possibly forget, that face is in his nightmares - but even when he looks up and directly at Shizuo, the latter doesn’t notice right away. Then he does.

  
“You’re missing an eye.”

  
“I’ve noticed,” Izaya says drily.

  
“You disappeared, worried your sisters, and want a pathetic truce with me because you lost an eye?” Shizuo starts laughing again, almost hysterical, and can’t stop this time. It’s almost surreal, wondering who actually could catch the flea if not him, but he can’t focus on that now. He is too consumed by how hilarious it feels. “An eye. What, are you shy? Because you aren’t a pretty boy anymore?” Shizuo cackles. He knows that isn’t true, the simple pupil-less glass eye, though seemingly far below what the informant could afford, doesn’t detract from his attractiveness. But Shizuo forces that thought out of his head even before it could fully come. “What, can you not be a one-eyed god? You absolute louse. You can still run.” He laughs and laughs, and it takes him a long time to settle down enough to see that Izaya is smiling, and it’s not a cruel one. It’s not a happy one, either. Peaceful, maybe. It’s unsettling.

  
“I can’t run, Shizuo. I’m missing a bit more than an eye.”

  
Shizuo’s breath catches on that, stilling the remnants of his laughter. Stirrings of anger flutter at the base of his spine, threatening to spill over and actually kill the informant for being a cryptic bastard. Then Izaya pulls up his right pant leg.

  
At first Shizuo can’t tell what he’s looking at, and his brain says that Izaya has a knife strapped to his leg, that he’s actually the same old Izaya after all, eye or no eye, that he’s here to fight and start the chase. Then it sinks in. Izaya has a metal leg.

  
It’s a simple one, not bothering to be the shape and density of a human leg. Just a pole that descends into the shoe that rests firmly on the floor, matching the other. With the informant sitting down, Shizuo wouldn’t have known.

  
Izaya is looking at it too, he notices. He wonders if the informant forgets about it sometimes. Goes to scratch an itch and only finds metal at his fingertips. Feels a cramp in the night and reaches down to nothingness. That vague and disturbing thought is scattered when Izaya looks back up at him.

  
“I can’t run, Shizuo,” he says seriously. “In addition to this, my spine is damaged and I have a metal hip. My mobility won’t ever be what it used to be. We can’t play chase anymore.”

  
Shizuo feels his anger start to surge again, wants to snap that they were never playing, that it truly was life or death and still is. But he doesn’t say anything.

  
“Now’s your chance to kill me,” Izaya adds. “But I hope you don’t.”

  
Only one thought crosses Shizuo’s mind, and he blurts it out at random. “Do your sisters know?”

  
“They do. They found out when it happened. It was assumed to be you.” At Shizuo’s audible growl, Izaya raises his hands in a placating manner before continuing. “I said it wasn’t. They were still suspicious. But I was in Canada to recover safe from angry clients, not from you.”

  
“And you’re in my apartment now. Admitting I could kill you easily.”

  
“Not easily,” Izaya says. “Maybe not at all. But if you did, a few people might be upset.” His tone lifts at the end, like he’s joking, but his eyes are serious. Eye.

  
“Who was it, then?” Shizuo asks gruffly after a pause, unable to quell the urge to find out who did what he couldn’t.

  
“Doesn’t matter,” Izaya says instantly.

  
Shizuo can see why the twins suspected it was him.

  
“You’re a shitty liar.”

  
“No,” Izaya says, a ghost of his crooked smile making its jagged way across his features, “I’m the _best_.”

  
Shizuo scoffs at this, but doesn’t answer. The two sit in silence for a moment, both heads turned to the window, where snow whips past the glass in drifts and waves.

  
“I’ll be going,” says Izaya unnecessarily, as he’s already standing up. Shizuo can see it now, the stiffness in his gait, the blankness of his features which is probably covering some type of pain. The off-balance movement toward the door. Shizuo lets him go, lets him get all the way to the door and to open it before he gives chase.

  
A ghost of anxiety crosses the informant’s face before it returns to a careful blank slate. They both pause.

  
Shizuo opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, and he growls, mostly at himself. He turns away and heads toward the kitchen. “Lock the door behind you, louse,” he grumbles.

  
“Sure, Shizu-chan. Merry Christmas,” the informant calls before the door clicks shut. The glass in Shizuo’s hand shatters at the sound of the nickname, growl rising, anger heating his face.

  
“I-za-yaaaa,” he mumbles, mostly to himself. A glance tells him that the door is indeed unlocked.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a multi-chapter fic but I just ended up wrapping it up before I lose interest like I so often do lol.


End file.
